By Melanie Radzicki McManus | Photography by Shanna Wolf
Kathy Cox spent years looking for the perfect lake property. She wanted to be on the southwestern side of Lake Mendota, but could never find just the right spot. One day, driving along Lake Mendota Drive, something unusual happened.
“I got a very strong sensation that this is where I needed to be,” she says. “I needed to be on this street.”
Cox began driving down the street daily to see if a property had gone up for sale. She even knocked on people’s doors, asking if they wanted to sell, with no luck. Finally, in 2017, a property came onto the market. Cox quickly made an offer, but was outbid. Amazingly, the home next door soon went up for sale. This time, Cox got it.
The century-old house she’d purchased didn’t suit her tastes, but the lakeside property did. So Cox tapped Mark Udvari- Solner, owner of Udvari-Solner Design Company, to create the perfect home for her. She didn’t want a traditional lake house, she told him, but rather a house on a lake. Her main desired features were an open floor plan and tall ceilings; four en-suite bedrooms; an elevator; and an exercise room and basketball court (which later turned into a pickleball court, after a friend’s insistence).
After several years of meticulous planning, Cox was ready to tear down the property’s existing home and start building her dream home, courtesy of Hart DeNoble Builders and Exterior Renovations. But it was now July 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic was snarling supply chains worldwide. Cox also began tweaking the plans, resulting in a nearly four-year construction process.
“I’m a visual person,” Cox says. “It was hard for me to look at the blueprint and see the finished house. So I made a gazillion changes along the way.”
But patience has its virtues. Cox is thrilled with the result: a modern, 6,200-square-foot, four-story home that contains all of her must-haves. Most importantly, it incorporates a wealth of glass to showcase the beauty of Lake Mendota.
Cox credits Lu Shay of Shay Chic Design and Ava Newell of Dream House Dream Kitchens for helping select everything from cabinet hardware to ceiling styles. But she brought many ideas of her own, often gleaned from obsessively watching home remodeling shows. One example is the home’s stunning glass staircase, beautifully flanked by a stone stairwell.
Her favorite feature is the home’s wealth of refrigerated drawers, which allow her to have chilled water bottles easily available, including in the home’s spa, which boasts a steam shower and sauna. Or maybe it’s the drop-down TVs in her exercise room or the full outdoor kitchen near her boathouse.
“My favorite feature is whatever I’m using at the time,” Cox says. “And the gorgeous, panoramic view of the lake? It never gets old. It’s so incredible.”
